During this month one man and a woman, attempting to cross one of the creeks at the Hawkesbury by a tree which had been thrown over, fell in, and were drowned; and one man had died there of the bite of a snake.  Three male convicts* died at Sydney.

[* One of them, William Locker, from the extraordinary deformity of his left leg, had been offered L100 for it in England.]

December.] The court of civil judicature had hitherto been but rarely assembled.  The few debts which had been contracted were not of sufficient moment, and had seldom remained long enough in doubt, to require an action to recover them.  But now the possibility having been discovered of acquiring in this country a property worth preserving, it was probable, when the talents and disposition of the men of landed property (the settlers) in New South Wales were considered, that many disputes would occur among them which the civil court alone could decide.

A court of civil judicature was assembled this month.  Some debts were sworn to, and writs granted.  An action for an assault was also tried.  About the latter end of the month of October, a large sow, the property of Mr. J. Boston, having trespassed with two or three other hogs on a close belonging to an officer of the New South Wales corps, was shot by a soldier of the regiment (the officer’s servant).  The owner, Mr. Boston, repairing immediately to the spot, on seeing the sow, then near farrowing, lying dead on the ground, made use of some intemperate expressions; which being uttered in the hearing of two of the officers and some other soldiers of the corps, the officers were said by Mr. Boston to have encouraged and urged the soldiers to beat him.  Mr. Boston had been struck, and, as it appeared on the trial, with a musket, which at the time was loaded.  Mr. Boston laid his damage at five hundred pounds.  The court however, after several days very attentive examination of the business, gave him a verdict against two of the defendants, with twenty shillings damages from each.  One of these defendants, a soldier, was advised to appeal from the decision of the court to the governor, who, after hearing the appeal, confirmed the verdict of the civil court.

On the 6th the Francis schooner sailed for Norfolk Island.  The governor, being anxious to learn the situation of the lieutenant-governor, sent her merely with a letter, that if unhappily any accident should have happened to him, a proper person might be sent in the Reliance to command the settlement, until a successor could arrive from England.  Having nothing to deliver or receive that could detain him, the master determined to try in what time his vessel could run thither and back again.

The harvest was begun in this month.  The Cape wheat (a bearded grain differing much from the English) was found universally to have failed.  An officer who had sown seven acres with this seed at a farm in the district of Petersham Hill, on cutting it down, found it was not worth the reaping.  This was owing to a blight; but every where the Cape wheat was pronounced not worth the labour of sowing.